


Hold me tight and don't let go

by Side_effect_of_the_meds



Series: Fem!Andreil [9]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:00:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22059730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Side_effect_of_the_meds/pseuds/Side_effect_of_the_meds
Summary: Sometimes, Erin just needs to be held
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: Fem!Andreil [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586845
Kudos: 36





	Hold me tight and don't let go

Erin and Ania are both incredibly touch starved. Both of them finds a way to deal with this but their methods are drastically different. Once Kevin finds out who Ania is, he softens up considerably. They spent a lot more time together as kids than Neil did in canon. As a result, Kevin has always seen Ania as a little sister. They hesitate to show affection for one another in front of the others for fear that they’ll get the wrong idea. However, every night after practice, while Erin is outside smoking, Kevin will sit on the couch with Ania curled up in his arms. 

Back at Evermore, Riko used to deprive Kevin of touch whenever he disobeyed or annoyed her. Even when they weren’t fighting, Riko wouldn’t touch him unless she wanted something from him. She’d drag a hand across the back of his neck when asking him to finish her work for her. She’d wrap her arms around his waist and bat her long lashes as she urged him to rough up the freshman for her amusement. She’d slide her hands up his shirt and watch him turn to putty before asking if she could cut him up. Just the thought of Riko’s blades on his skin pained him but he always said yes anyway. Kevin was covered in the deep scars of Riko’s ‘love’ but it hadn’t mattered to him so long as she kept touching him. Since his flight from the nest, Kevin has had no physical contact off the court and he feels like he’s losing his mind. When Ania admits that she sometimes wishes that someone would hold her, Kevin jumps at the chance. They spend half an hour on the couch every night, clinging onto each other like their lives depend on it. Their sanity definitely does. 

Erin doesn’t get much physical contact due to the persona she’s built up. While she’s drugged sky high, Nicky will chance laying a hand on her shoulder. That simple gesture always floods her with so many emotions. Anger that he would touch her; repulsion at the thought of a man near her; horror at having a man’s hand on her; despair at knowing she’ll have to survive the rest of the week on that alone. There is only one other source of physical contact but the means by which Erin acquires it makes her feel a little sick. 

When Aaron gets drunk, he lets loose. From her perch Erin watches as her brother’s inhibitions fall away. She watches the smile creep across his face as he sways to the music. Over the pounding music, she can always pick out his laughter. Alcohol and cracker dust mix in together in his bloodstream and Erin gets a glimpse of what Aaron once was.  _ Is this the real Aaron? _ she asks herself.  _ Or is it just the one that existed before?  _ Whatever the case may be, seeing Aaron like that makes her throat close up. Erin wants her brother by her side. She wants him to be happy, she really does, but not without her. 

On the way home she watches him in the rearview mirror. His laughter has subsided. Instead he’s sitting sideways with his legs thrown over Nicky’s lap. A small sleepy smile decorates his face as he listens to Nicky ramble on about something or the other. For once, he looks at peace. When Aaron hugs Nicky goodnight before heading to his own room, Erin feels a knife twisting in her heart. Both boys are too inebriated for them to have even the slightest of chances at remembering the exchange the next morning. Even if Nicky does, he’ll wave it off as a dream.  _ My cousins don’t love me,  _ Erin can hear him chiding himself. 

One night, about a year before Wymack could recruit them, Erin had woken from a nightmare and headed to the kitchen for some hot chocolate. She had found that it calmed her nerves better than anything else. The kitchen light was already on. In the overly bright glow of the tube lights, she saw her brother sitting on the counter. 

“Eri!” he called when he saw her. The smile he turned on her could have lit up the entire Earth on its own. Realizing how loud he’d been he clamped his hands over his own mouth. They couldn’t cover his wide smile. “Eri,” he whispered, just as enthusiastically as the first time. Dropping his hands, he asked, “What are you doing up? Can’t sleep? I can’t sleep either. We have a test on Monday. Did you study? Wait, we can study together!” He clamped his hands over his mouth once more, aware that he might wake Nicky. A half empty bottle of whiskey sat beside him. He giggled as a sleepy look settled over his face.

“You’ve had enough of this,” Erin said as she walked over to him. Grabbing the bottle, she felt him grab her wrist. She pulled away but he didn’t let go. 

“You want to hear a secret?” he asked, looking very serious. Erin looked deep into her brother’s eyes. It was like staring into a mirror. Brushing her hair away from her ear, he leaned in close. “You’re really, really mean,” he said. Erin stepped back out of his reach as he threw his head back and laughed. 

_ Is this what I’m like when I’m high? _

“You’re so mean,” he continued. “And it makes everything so hard. You never want to talk to me. You never want to hang out with me. You don’t even let me have friends. You’re so mean, Eri and it makes everything so so hard,” he said. She turned her back on him. She didn’t need the musings of her drunk brother. “But I still love you, Eri.” Erin stopped in her tracks. Distantly, she was aware of Aaron hopping off the counter. She felt him brush past her and heard his footsteps on the stairs. Laying in bed, she stared up at the glow in the dark stars Nicky had plastered to the ceiling. She lost track of the hours she wasted listening to her brother’s words replay themselves over and over again in her head. 

The next morning, when Erin went down to breakfast, she found her brother and cousin already at the table. As soon as Aaron caught sight of her, a scowl passed over his face. He chucked his bowl into the sink and slid past her, keeping a wide berth between the two of them. Erin starts to think she hallucinated last night’s encounter. She has to be sure. That night, once Nicky’s gone to bed, she leaves a new bottle of Aaron’s favorite whiskey on the counter in the kitchen. 

Creeping down the stairs, she sees the kitchen light on once more. She finds Aaron swaying softly to the music wafting through the air from the radio. 

“Dance with me,” he says when he sees her. Erin flinches when he grabs her hands but he doesn’t seem to notice. He spins her round and round in the little kitchen until Erin can no longer stand right. Aaron falls against her, drunk and dizzy. Every nerve in Erin’s body screams in protest. She shuts her eyes tight and tries to calm the racing of her heart. “Eri? Are you okay?” Aaron’s voice cuts through the blood roaring in her ears. 

Pulling herself together, Erin sends him an impassive look. She watches as her brother deflates. He gives her a soft smile instead. It looks just like Nicky’s. If it’s Nicky’s smile, that makes it Luther and Tilda’s smile too. Erin hates that such a kind smile comes from such shitty people. Aaron carefully raises a hand and pets her head softly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I won’t do it again.” He walks shakily out of the kitchen, using the wall for support. Before he can leave, he turns to look at her once more, “I still love you, Eri.” 

When Erin is sure he’s gone she lets herself collapse on the kitchen floor. Erin has always felt things but she’s never felt anything like this. When Nicky smiles, when Aaron laughs, when they dance, a warm feeling fills her chest.  _ My boys, _ is always her first thought. Nicky and Aaron are her family. They make her… happy. Erin has been alive seventeen years and, in all that time, she has never been happy. Until now. 

When Aaron gets drunk, he lets loose. His mouth runs too fast for his mind to keep up. When Aaron gets drunk, he tells Erin all the things he wishes he could tell her. Erin has never been grateful for her eidetic memory but now she commits everything about her brother on those nights to her memory without any trouble. He tells her about all the things he loves and all the things he would do if he knew Erin wouldn’t stop him. She isn’t ready to let her brother go. She isn’t ready to let him have all the things he wants but she tries. She always makes sure she picks up his favorite chips and picks up a few clothes in navy blue because she knows it's his favorite color. She records all his favorite shows for him and turns the radio up when his favorite songs play. She knows he knows what she’s doing but he never does more than glare at her. 

At night after Aaron’s downed his whiskey, Erin lets him brush the hair out of her face and cup her face in his hands. She lets him stare into her empty eyes and tell her they’re pretty. She tells him that they’re the same as his and lets herself almost smile when he tells her that’s why they’re so pretty. She lets him spin her around the kitchen as they sing softly along to the radio. When his eyes start to fall shut, she lets him lean on her. She lets him wrap his arms around her neck and carries him back to his room when he gets too tired to walk. She lets him tell her that she’s the meanest person that he’s ever met. She lets him hold her hand while he insists that he wouldn’t trade her for any other sister in the world. 

Alone in her room she stares up at the stars on her ceiling. Guilt is not something Erin believed in. In order to feel guilt, a person must regret what they’re done. They must feel shame. In the early hours of the morning, Erin lets herself feel shame for hiding behind the smokescreen of her drugs and exploiting alcohol's ability to get her Aaron to drop his guard. 

This goes on until Ania shows up. On Halloween, Erin finds herself drifting towards the kitchen. The light is on and Aaron is just stumbling out of the kitchen. 

“Eri,” he cooes. He extends his arms out to her and loses his balance. She surges forward to catch him. She hears him laugh. “I knew you’d catch me,” he says. Erin just sighs and picks him up. As she turns to carry him back to bed, she sees Ania watching her from the couch. How could she have forgotten that Ania was staying with them? This was it. This was how everyone figured out that Erin was really just a soft bitch. She carries Aaron back to his bed and fall back into her own. Staring up at the ceiling she wonders who Ania will tell first. 

The next morning Erin finds Ania sitting alone at the breakfast table. Erin grabbed the box of cereal and poured it into a bowl. After a moment’s consideration, she poured her coffee into the same bowl. 

“That’s disgusting,” Ania says. 

“Who did you tell?” Erin replies as she shovels a spoon full of stupidly sugary cereal into her mouth. It tastes horrible with the coffee but she isn’t going to lose face in front of the runaway. Ania frowns as if she doesn’t remember what she saw last night. A small part of Erin hope that she did. That hope is crushed within seconds as Ania’s eyebrows shoot up.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” she replies. Erin holds her gaze as she shovels another spoonful of the shitty cereal into her mouth. “Consider this your... compensation. You let me bring the upperclassmen out to Eden’s so I’ll keep your secret. That’s fair, yeah?” Erin didn’t say anything. No one had ever tried to pay her back. Every person she’d ever met was focused on what they stood to gain from her. Men had take, take, taken from Erin all her life. There had been women too, not as many, but just as bad. Sitting three feet across from her sat the first person to ever look at Erin and try to give something back. 

“ _ Oh, _ ” was all Erin could say. Raised voices argued outside. Erin could easily pick out Kevin’s voice in the middle of it all. 

“Sometimes I feel bad for you,” Ania says as she stands. She places her bowl in the sink and heads for the patio door. “You got yourself stuck with two idiots that know how to pick fights but not finish them.” Ania gives her a wry smile as she slides the door open and slips outside to investigate the commotion outside. 

Aaron and Nicky made Erin feel happy. Watching Ania leave, Erin realized that she made her feel things too. It wasn’t happiness that she felt. It was something more. Erin hated it immediately. 

In the months following the upperclassmen’s trip to Eden’s a lot of things happened. From that moment on, Erin’s feelings only intensified. With them came the unbearable urge to touch Ania. Erin didn’t care if it was to rip her still-beating heart of out her chest or feel the that same heart pounding in time with her own as Erin wound her fingers through Ania’s hair. She just wanted- needed to touch her. She got her wish just before she got carted off to Easthaven. Ania had snagged her wrists and placed Erin’s hand under her shirt. Beneath her fingers, Erin could feel the ridges and valleys of a thousand scars. There was nothing she wanted more than to trace every one of them with her eyes, her fingers, her lips. If Erin came back from Easthaven in one piece, she wondered if she’d get the chance to do so. 

She did. Every night following the birthday incident, Ania dragged herself back from midnight practice up to the rooftop where Erin say waiting. Every night Erin traced those scars and ground her fingers into the soft skin on Ania’s hips. She pulled at her hair and scratched at her back. She bit up her thighs where no one would see and licked at core. It wasn’t enough. Erin could never get enough of Ania. The only times, Erin seemed remotely close to satisfied was when Ania sat on the stool in their bathroom as Erin braided her hair. Feeling the heat of Ania’s back pressed against her stomach soothed Erin in a way nothing ever had. 

After Binghamton, Erin realized what exactly it was that she wanted. She wanted Ania pressed as close to her as she could get her. She didn’t ever want to be apart from her again. How could she though? Every time someone pressed against her, Erin felt herself losing her grip on her sanity. Letting Ania run her hands through her hair was already unraveling her. Erin was torn. Either she’d lose her sanity beneath the weight of another person or she’d lose it from the lack of it. 

Erin lasted a few more months before it got too much. Summer practice hadn’t yet started, so Wymack had insisted on taking Kevin to see a specialist. Riko’s death had broken something deep inside of him. She might have been a sorry excuse for a human being but Kevin had really loved her.  _ The same could be said about Ania,  _ Erin thought as she led her up to her room.

Today was worse than most days. Erin could almost feel the weight of someone over her. Sometimes, she thought she could catch the faint smell of alcohol but the house was empty save for her and Ania, neither of whom had been drinking. She sat Ania down on her bed and stared at her. Ania stared back, her expression colored with curiosity. 

“Yes or no,” Erin asked. 

“Yes,” Ania replied with a soft smile. Erin’s immediate response was to scowl. Ania’s smile only widened. Erin carefully climbed onto the bed, straddling her. She placed her hands on Ania’s shoulders and lowered herself into her lap. Ania’s eyes grew wide as she watched Erin settle in her lap. 

“Hold me.” Arms wrapped around Erin’s waist and her stomach lurched. She could feel herself breathing a little too fast. 

“Erin?” Ania asked as she loosened her grip on her waist. 

“Don’t let go.” The arms slowly tightened around her middle and drew her close. Erin buried her face in the crook of Ania’s neck and inhaled shakily. Seconds, minutes, hours, days passed before Erin finally started to relax. This was it. This was what she had been so desperate for. The hard press of Ania’s body against hers without the weight of it bearing down on her was exactly what Erin needed to ground her. Some soft impulse took over Erin. She pressed soft open mouthed kisses to every inch of exposed skin she could reach without pulling away from Ania. She basked in the giggles that slipped past Ania’s lips. Sunlight streamed through the window behind Ania, casting a soft halo around her. Erin always thought that Ania was beautiful but, in that moment, she looked ethereal. In that moment, Erin believed in God. Why? Because she was sitting right in Her lap. 


End file.
